Shining a light on the health products aisle

Which is not before time, given that a recent spot check of 400 so-called alternative medicine products found that nine out of 10 breached TGA regulations.

I decided to put my own two bobs' worth in. In the interests of transparency, I reproduce an edited version of my own submission to the review here. It's not as good as the more detailed submissions from Choice magazine and the Consumers Health Forum of Australia, but I found writing it to be, well, therapeutic.

I wrote:

At the moment the TGA appears to operate as a rubber stamp for health fraud. It beggars belief that the "Aust L" "self-assessment" system allows people to sell untested products for medicinal use without having to provide so much as a jot of evidence for their efficacy.

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The fact that a recent spot check found that 90 per cent of so-called complementary and alternative medicine products do not comply with regulations shows that the system is broken.

To help with transparency:

All "Aust L" listed products should carry a warning box stating something to the effect of "The makers of this product have shown zero evidence that this product works for any disease or condition or that it can improve your general health or wellbeing."

Products that are known to be scientifically implausible should be labelled as such. The labelling should explain that scientific implausibility doesn't mean that "it works but we don't know how"; that it means "it can't possibly work as claimed unless much of our accumulated knowledge of physics, chemistry and physiology is completely wrong".

The complaints process should not be so completely opaque. Some weeks ago I used the TGA's online complaints submission to submit a complaint (about the sale of colloidal silver for human consumption and the treatment of serious diseases in what seems a clear breach of the Therapeutic Goods Act). When I called to check up on the complaint a week later I was told it had never arrived so I had to re-submit it by email. Complaints submitted online should get a receipt number, like you do when you pay a bill online.

People who make complaints should be informed of the result of the investigation - if indeed any investigation takes place. I have no idea whether my complaint will be investigated, and I get the impression that I will never find out unless I keep hassling people to check up on it.

The TGA should be issuing a hell of a lot more advisories. The list of advisories is very short and threadbare. For instance, there is only one mention of homeopathic "immunisations" - a warning from 2002 not to use homeopathic "vaccines" for meningococcal disease. There is no warning about homeopaths selling useless "immunisations" for other diseases (including whooping cough, a serious respiratory infection that has been killing Australian children again in recent years). Also, there are no warnings about colloidal silver, ear candling and countless other things on which Australians are wasting their money and risking their health every day.

There should be real consequences for breaching the Act. As long as the manufacturers and retailers of alternative nostrums feel free to scoff at the TGA they will continue to put people's health at risk.

What do you think? Do you think the TGA should do more to tell consumers that there is no evidence to support many of the remedies being sold in pharmacies, supermarkets and health-food stores? Do you think people who want to sell alternative remedies should have to prove that they work before they can be approved for sale? Submissions to the TGA review close tomorrow, by the way.

Around the science webs:

A new study finds that smoking cannabis is associated with the early onset of psychotic illnesses.

144 comments so far

I completely agree; gullible or just uninformed people are being taken for long rides by all sorts of nonsense. Try this, for instance: a nephew of mine was 'diagnosed' by an 'applied kinesiology' practitioner as having a fungal infection in his adrenal glands. This was established by 'muscle testing' in response to his violent rages. He was given a foul tasting and expensive concoction of tea tree oil and grapefruit extract to 'cure' him. Actually he was later diagnosed with ADHD and ritalin helped instantly. My sister in law claimed that because the chiropractor was supported via medicare the applied kinesiology nonsense must be OK. Complete failure of TGA, in my view.

Commenter

Derrida

Date and time

February 10, 2011, 6:52AM

Good article.

I'm often frustrated to see Homeopathic remedies, Magnet Therapies or other dubious products being sold in pharmacies across Australia.

I understand the power of placebo, of feeling like you are trying to something truly "alternative" that may be associated with a more "whole body treatment", but in truth, these products simply have no proven efficacy, and in the case of Homeopathic, no grounding in science at all.

Yes, vendors should be required to label products that don't have clinical evidence (double-blinded, of course) supporting their claims.

Commenter

Daniel V

Location

Croydon

Date and time

February 10, 2011, 6:58AM

Good stuff Brad, I like the last comment and think it's probably one of the most important. I totally agree that if you are going to sell something to the public and claim that it has some effect, you should be able to prove it. You also need to clearly state any associated side effects.We wouldn't accept dangerous Toys or non-functioning electronics so why are we willing to accept this from CAM products?

Commenter

albo

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 10, 2011, 7:28AM

I think those people who choose to buy such products will keep believing in them even if the label states that there is no evidence to show that it works. There are many people who think they are clever rejecting the scientific view - these people find belief, not proof to be sufficient. We should not dismiss the placebo effect, 10% better than nothing, and the fact that when patients visit alternative therapists who might sell these products they feel treated like a human, something that many medical doctors have forgotten about - this can help people recover from simple illnesses. However, I personally support the fact that the lable on a product should state clearly whether the claims made by the manufacturer are genuine or not. Ordinary pharmaceutical companies have to submit to stringent testing, so why not anyone else? Otherwise we are just opening the door to charlatans, fakes and those that would take advantage of the naive to make greedy amounts of profit. Some people may even be physically harmed by dangerous products, so we need tighter control. Something has to be done to correct the New Age view that alternative practitioners and their products are genuine, whilst conventional doctors and medicines are not.

Commenter

Rob

Location

ACT

Date and time

February 10, 2011, 7:28AM

How could they improve transparency? Simple!

For it to be sold it must show its efficacy in a respectable peer-reviewed medical journal and citation MUST be provided. The public awareness of science is extremely low, just look at the use of the "dangers of dihydrogen monoxide" to see how very little people know about basic chemicals! There should be education (for adults even!) of exactly how science works, and why alternative medicines are considered pseudoscientific.

There is a name for alternative medicine that works, it is called 'medicine'.

Also Brad, you should read the comments on that Bill Nye article you posted. It actually shocks me how people can be so ignorant of basic science! To understand how evolution works is not that hard. Yes, there are complexities, but to understand that life diversifies and changes is not a difficult concept is it?

Commenter

Peyton

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 10, 2011, 7:29AM

The TGA in it's current configuration may as well not exist. Have a look at its web page, identify the list of rulings that it has issued against organisations that have violated TGA regulations, and then try and find just one instance where the TGA have taken disciplinary action that has had a material impact on the organisation it has ruled against. I couldn't find any. Yes, they do issue rulings from time to time, but they rarely, if ever, provide any disincentive to continue the behaviours and are rarely, if ever, enforced.

Usually, it's no more than a slap on the wrist and in many cases the TGA's directives are simply ignored, with no consequences encountered. The TGA is like a police force that charges people with offences but then never acts to apply the penalties associated with that offence.

Why bother issuing rulings if they aren't enforced? Shame on you TGA.

ALL claims for all medical devices and medicines should be required to be evidence-based. Any that aren't should be removed from the market and the violators significantly punished. We give people whopping fines that are enforced to the T for every imaginable parking offence in this country but not for knowingly selling fake medicines? What kind of society is that?

In the current environment, anyone can claim just about anything and even if they are found to have been in violation of TGA regulations, virtually nothing of consequence transpires.

Shame on you TGA. The perfect paper tiger.

It's time you got off your butts and earned your keep.

Commenter

Rob

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 10, 2011, 7:43AM

I hope all critical thinking people make a submission to ensure more obvious warnings on products

A recent UK example had a researcher contact hundreds of homeopaths & homeopathy associations to ascertain how much of their "cures" you could take before you overdosed

Most answered you couldn't overdose but some did suggest there was an upper limit. Given you have more chance of being hit by an asteroid that getting any active ingredient out of a homeopathy treatment the only way to overdose is in the sense you can die from consuming too much water (if the treatment is waterbased from the homeopath) & you can prbably get a fatal sugar issue from the tablet form, in that you may get type 2 diabetes if you swallow that much sugar

Commenter

Paul

Location

Newcastle

Date and time

February 10, 2011, 7:44AM

Colloidal silver? Never heard of it and that doesn't sound like a bad thing.

The answer to Brad's questions? Absolutely!

There is so much misinformation about health and health care out there and people take the advice of their neighbours, colleagues and Great Aunt Ethel (which might be ok if they are health experts) before checking out the veracity of such information.

An old friend of mine, who had no training in health, medicine, nutrition, science etc started selling Herbalife and giving weight loss adivce. The only training she received came from Herbalife. The claims they made were fantastic, but not backed up with any independant testing. While their products may not be harmful, there is also no evidence to prove that they deliver on the promises they make. Shouldn't companies be accountable for the claims they make? I think they should.

Same friend has moved on from Herbalife and last I heard is now pushing The Secret; enough said...

Commenter

Kate

Location

Bruthen

Date and time

February 10, 2011, 7:54AM

It is rather odd that you note all Aust L products have no evidence of efficacy. There are volumes of scientific assays from decades of use relating to vitamins, minerals and herbs. How much do you actually need ? The TGA is probably quite aware of what may harm as far as "alternatives"are concerned and schedules these accordingly. My concern with them is that they allow the continued easy access to pharmacy strength drugs that can be bought over the counter and can cause serious harm where used incorrectly .

Commenter

PJ Pemberton

Location

australia

Date and time

February 10, 2011, 8:04AM

There is also an opportunity to attend public meetings of the TGA Transparency Panel in Melbourne and elsewhere to comment on these matters. See:

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